Till Death Do Us Part {Completed}

Chapter Twenty-Three - Dancing With Death

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Dedicated to 12bTimelordPlace for continuing to read. Thank you, lovely!

 

           

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            ~Chapter Twenty-Three – Dancing With Death~

 

 

They held Lucas’s trial three weeks later.

            By then I was stable enough to walk, though I had to keep my arm in a sling that prevented me from much strenuous activity. It required physical therapy, of which was one of the most agonizing activities I could think of, but it was getting better. As long as I watched how I moved, treated it well and had regular painkillers, it was a pain I could manage.

            Not having Finn in my life, however, remained a constant struggle.

            Now that summer had descended on Hopetown, California, the sweltering heats were enough to keep you holed up in your homes with the AC cranked as high as it could go, ice ready to go.

            Yet here I stood on a balmy Tuesday in July, clad in a respectful dress, my hair curled and coiffed courtesy of my mother, in a courtroom at the local courthouse, awaiting the trial to begin for the life imprisonment of Lucas Stylz. Journalists crowded around, eager for the latest buzz, and guards stood at every entrance. The place was filled, and my parents stood close by. I also saw Finn’s family in the distance, his mother and father and his brother standing there talking amongst themselves, though there was no mistaking the distinctive red rim under Heather McDermott’s eyes. I had the same red rim under my own.

            I also saw Julie and Bob Stylz, the—once-proud—parents of Lucas. I wondered what they thought of the situation. This whole thing would’ve come as a complete shock to the innocent parents, finding out that their son had killed his best friend and attempted murder on his girlfriend. I felt sorry for them. Julie was a total sweetheart, and Bob was a proud, hearty father. They were loving parents, who deserved better than a scumbag son like Lucas.

            When they brought Lucas into the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit with ‘County Jail’ emblazoned on the back, the whole crowd burst into an uproar as he was roughly tugged into a wooden seat all too close to my own. I had a lawyer with me, and I was sat at a wooden table across from Lucas. When he looked at me, his lips pulled up into a smirk, and I averted my eyes quickly as a shiver trailed up my spine. I could hardly believe I’d once been in love with that.

            The judge arrived, a stern-faced lady in her mid-fifties with graying hair and stormy eyes. She banged her gavel on the mahogany a few times, silencing the room. A barrister read out the charges, and the proceedings moved quickly. My lawyer made some accusations to Lucas’s lawyer, which was swiftly rebutted, people spoke up, the judge asked questions and finally I was asked to come up as his main witness, to be poked and prodded under a microscope by Lucas’s lawyer. I knew he’d be looking for any cracks in my armor, and I had to be strong and truthful throughout the whole questioning. Besides the ghost thing, I had no reason to lie, so I was pretty happy to swear under the oath that I was telling the truth.